The lives of four college students – finding friends, attending classes, dealing with their futures and making daily choices – were displayed across the television screen of the Women’s Center Tuesday night.

While these four people attended colleges throughout the United States, they were linked by one detail – they identify themselves as transgendered.

Lounging on couches or seated on the floor, about 21 Northwestern students gathered to view the first episode of TransGeneration. The eight-part documentary series from the Sundance Channel chronicles the experiences of four individuals over the 2004-05 academic year as they undergo the process of gender reassignment.

“It’s something that hasn’t been done before. It’s a unique perspective,” said Jonathan Lewis, an LGBT Resource Center coordinator, about the series.

The campus resource center – designed to support the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community at NU – sponsored the viewing and screened parts of the documentary during the LGBT Welcoming Reception Sept. 15.

Jessica Parent, a first-year Law student, said she traveled to the Evanston campus after seeing an announcement for the showing.

Through the documentary, NU students such as Parent met Gabbie, a University of Colorado at Boulder student; Lucas, who attends Smith College in Massachusetts; T.J. from Michigan State University; and Raci, a freshman at California State University in Los Angeles. The students profiled in the series showed how they cope with living as transgendered individuals, from dealing with coming out to their families to either concealing or revealing their biological gender to classmates.

“This is the most difficult part of college – starting out,” Raci said in the film. During the first episode, she discussed why she hides her transgender identity.

The show also highlighted the process of reassigning gender, including chronicling Lucas’ decision to start male hormone treatments and Gabbie’s countdown to her sex reassignment surgery.

Parent said the show depicted how much transgender issues have changed since she graduated college in 2000 and offers a unique perspective of the community.

“It does kind of bring up issues that people might not think about,” she said.

The LGBT Resource Center will show the remaining episodes of the series starting at 8 p.m. Wednesdays in the Women’s Center. Two half-hour episodes will be screened each week.

Reach Angela Tablac at [email protected].

Quick facts:

• TransGeneration is an eight-part series on the Sundance Channel following the lives of four
• transgender college students.
• The LGBT Resource Center will show episodes two and three next Wednesday at 8 p.m. at the Women’s Center, 2000 Sheridan Road.
• The remaining episodes will be shown, two per week, at 8 p.m. on Wednesdays at the Women’s Center.